Optical triangulation is a convenient method of noncontact measurement. The prior art contains methods for projecting a pencil beam or a fan beam of light and viewing the image that the light beam creates on a surface to be measured. As long as the viewing device is in a known relationship to the projected light beam, then the three-dimensional co-ordinates of surface points illuminated by the projected light can be computed
It is often desirable to gather more data than is available from the point image of a pencil beam of light or from the line image of a fan beam of light. The prior art contains methods for mechanically and/or electrically scanning the light beams so that data can be acquired from an area of a surface.
The present invention provides an improved method for mechanically scanning the light beams.